Chairman of Wistron Expects Demand for Personal Computers to Rebound in Second Quarter.

In overall, analysts and observers believe that the second quarter of 2009 will be extremely tough for all market players, but Simon Lin, who is the chairman of Wistron, a contract maker of personal computers and other electronics that used to be a part of Acer Group, claims that in Q2 2009 the demand towards PCs will rebound.

In an interview with DigiTimes web-site, Mr. Lin noted that he expects the demand towards PCs to increase across-the-board in the second quarter of this year, which is a very optimistic prediction, given current situation in the economy. But this is not the only surprising claim made during the conversations with journalists.

According to Mr. Lin, Wistron will not “not compete for netbook orders in 2009” since such computers have very low profit margin. According to Mr. Lin, notebooks featuring 11.6” panels as well as inexpensive components should be popular than netbooks, which may be an indirect indicator that Wistron is working on low-power small form-factor consumer-oriented notebooks based on AMD Athlon Neo processors or analogues from Intel Corp.

It is interesting to note that the chairman of Wistron also stressed that the company had received four large orders for all-in-one personal computers, which may imply that suppliers of such machines are preparing to push them aggressively into the market.